Seal blank



United States Patent Inventor Frank E. Briggs Southington, Conn. Appl. No. 807,249 Filed Mar. 14, 1969 Patented Dec. 29, 1970 Assignee The Stanley Works New Britain, Conn. a corporation of Connecticut SEAL BLANK 9 Claims, 3 Drawing Figs.

U.S. Cl; 206/65, 7 24/23, 211/59 Int. Cl 865d 63/06, B65d 71/00, B65d 85/62 Field of Search 206/65 (K),

65, 57, 37; 24/23(W), 20(W);21l/59, 57

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS l/l9l8 Moore 206/57 2/1942 Steiner 211/57 3/1962 Appelt 206/65(K) 4/1965 McGinn 206/65(K) FOREIGN PATENTS 7/1951 Canada 211/59 Primary Examiner-William T. Dixson, Jr. Attorney-Prutzman, Hayes, Kalb & Chilton ABSTRACT: Stacked sleeve seal blanks having configured apertures in their back plates are secured in a uniformly oriented manner through interengagement with a semirigid binder ribbon passing through and cooperating with the apertures. The ribbon may be bent or twisted at its ends to temporarily lock the seal blanks together until the entire stack is inserted as a unit into a suitable blank feeding device.

PATENTEUDE'czsmm 3550.768

'INVENTOR FRANK E. BRIGGS F/GZ Has 35 36 BY ATTORNEYS SEAL BLANK BACKGROUND AND SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a new and improved seal blank for securing overlying portions of strapping and the like and to a transportable stack of such seal blanks.

Seal blanks may be conveniently classified into two groups, nestable blanks commonly referred to as the open type and nonnestable blanks of which the closed sleeve seal blank is typical. The open nestable blanks are generally of U-shaped cross section and conventionally have a pair of outwardly flared side flanges permitting overlap or nesting of one blank within another when the blanks are stacked in aligned overlying relationship. The nonnestable seal blanks do not possess overlapping flanges and therefore must be placed within a carton or tied with an externally circumscribing binder to prevent relative orientation and misalignment of the blanks during shipment and handling.

As is well known, it has become the, custom for seal blanks to be fed to a sealing station from elongated magazines or similar dispensing devices. Accordingly, it isdesirable to provide the blanks in the form of elongated stacks which can be quickly and efficiently loaded into the magazine. The opentype nestable seal blanks are particularly well suited to this stacking requirement and therefore have experienced considerable popularity at the expense of the closed type blank, despite the many advantages of the latter.

Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a new and improved, nonnestable, seal blank construction and design which facilitates the aligned stacking of a plurality of such blanks and the prevention of relative orientation thereof within the stack without the necessity for external 2 7 DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT Referring now to the drawing in greater detail, wherein like reference numerals indicate like parts throughout the various FIGS, several sleeve-type, strappingseal blanks 10 are shown uniformly oriented and aligned. in the form of an elongated 18. The flanges 16 are disposed substantially parallel to back wrappings, thereby enhancing the adaptability of such blanks closed-type strapping seal blankswhich can be conveniently handled and shipped, and can be readily inserted into a magazine while the blanks are releasably held against relative movement;

A further object of the present invention is the provision for I a simple and economical seal blank design capable of utilizing the manufacturers trademark or symbol as part of the stack alignment feature thereof. p

Other objects will be in part obvious and in part pointed out more in detail hereinafter.

These and related objects are achieved in accordance with the present invention by providing a seal blank with a suitably configured aperture in its back plate for preventing rotation of the seal blank relative to a deformable,-stack-binding ribbon passing through the aperture. Both the aperture and the ribbon are of noncircular shape and permit free sliding movement of the blank along the longitudinal axis of the ribbon ex- I eept when the ribbon is defonned to limit such movement.

A better understanding of the objects, advantages, features, properties and relationships of the invention will be obtained from the following detailed description and the accompanying illustrative drawing.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING In the Drawing FIG. 1 is a'perspective view of a stack of sleeve seals incorporating the invention, a portion of the, stack being removed for clarity of illustration;

FIG. 2 is a partial plan view of a sleeve seal blank showing plate 14 and terminate in free edges 20 which define a longitudinally extending central gap 22 communicating with the interior of the seal blank. As depicted, the flanges 16are spaced fromthe back plate 14 by a slightly greater distance at their free edges 20 than at arcuate edges 18 to assure no'ninterference by the flanges with the smooth feeding of the strapping between the plate 14 and the flanges l6 and the subsequent tightening thereof.

As is apparent from FIG. 1, contact between adjacent seal blanks occurs only between those areas of the back plate 14 of the lower blank which underlie the spaced parallel free edges 20 of the overlying seal blanks. The generally flat and smooth top surface of plate 14 provides no substantial interference to relative movement between the seal blanks, and clearly no mutually interlocking surfaces. Accordingly, the blanks them selves provide no mutually interlocking surfaces. Accordingly, the blanks themselves provide no mutually interacting locking means for securing the'blanks against rotational or slidable displacement in the absence of a suitable binder.

Advantageously, such misalignment is prevented in accordance with the present invention by providing the back plate 14 of each sleeve seal blank with an aperture of suitable cordingly, as shown in FIG. 1, the blanks 10 are provided with a generally elliptical aperture 24 positioned centrally in the back plate above the gap 22 defined by flange edges 20. A ribbonlike binder or ligature 26 passes longitudinally through the entire stack 12, firmly securing each seal blank 10 against displacement in its respective horizontal plane by the interfering cooperation between the ligature 26 and the sidewalls 28 of the aperture 24. The aperture and binder are configured and dimensioned for a freely cooperative fit to provide free sliding movement of the blanks along the length of the binder.

The ribbonlike binder 26 is preferably a semirigid member, albeit sufficiently soft to facilitate manual deformation of those portions which protrude from a given stack of seal blanks. Thus, as shown in FIG. 1, the end tabs 30 of the binder may be bent down into contact with the terminal seal blanks in the stack. Of course, it will be appreciated that the binder may be deformed in other ways to provide the desired blank-securing effect, such as by twisting the ends of the ligature about their axis. It is also a feature of the present invention that the ribbonlike ligature 26 can be easily withdrawn from the stack after it has been loaded into the magazine of a sealing device. Even in the absence of a straightening of the lower end tab 30, the ligature can be easily removed simply by firmly grasping the top end tab and steadily drawing the ligature upwardly.

the ribbon-receiving aperture thereof in the form of the letter S; and a FIG. 3 is a plan view similar to FIG. 2 showing another emthereof.

Thereby no cutting tool is required to ready the stack for use and the risk of jamming a severedbinder in the magazine is' substantially reduced.

In order to provide these features it has been found that dead soft strip steel can be beneficially employed. Such material is easily deformed by hand yet is sufficiently rigid to resist inadvertent release of secured seal blanks within the stack. Itwill be appreciated that suitable equivalent material can also be used.

As will be readily appreciated, the specific design of th aligning and orienting aperture of the seal blank may vary substantially so long as the requisite interference to rotation relative to the binder is maintained. Apertures 34 and 36 shown in FIGS. 2 and 3, respectively, are exemplary of other configurations which may be employed. Accordingly, the particular configuration may take the form of a manufacturer's trademark or symbol such as the triangular aperture 36, or may be a letter associated with the manufacturer such as the S-shaped aperture 34 of FIG. 2. Either configuration would readily cooperate .with a noncircular ligature of suitable size and shape to impart the desired orientation and alignment to the seal blanks. As will be appreciated, the ligature may conform entirely to the configuration of the aperture, as illustrated in FIG. 1, or may fill only a portion thereof in the manner of binder 38 of FIG. 3. In either event the cooperative interference fit between the seal blank and the ligature is present.

As can be seen from the foregoing detailed description, the present invention provides a new and improved sleeve seal blank capable of being stacked in an oriented and aligned manner for shipment and handling as a unit without external packaging. Additionally, secured stacks can be quickly and efficiently loaded into a magazine or other dispenser for a strap sealing device in much the same manner as nested seal blanks.

- The noncircular aperture in the back plate of the seals pro vides for self-orientation of the seals through the cooperative interengagement with a noncircular ligature whose ends can be easily deformed to retain the stacked seal blanks in firm abutting engagement. The construction also permits the free, unhampered removal of independent blanks from the stack after removal of the retaining ligature. Further the new design permits the loading of the stack within a dispensing device prior to removal of the ligature and facilitates the manual removal thereof without the necessity of cutting tools thereby precluding disintegration of the stack or possible misalignment of the blanks prior to the magazine loading operation.

As will be apparent to persons skilled in the art, various modifications, adaptations and variations of the foregoing specific disclosure can be made without departing from the teachings of the present invention.

lclaim:

1. An elongated stack of nonnestable seal blanks suitable for securing strapping and the like comprising a plurality of individual seal blanks disposed in aligned overlying relationship, each of said blanks including a back plate having seal blank orienting means spaced inwardly from the edges thereof. the orienting means of immediately adjacent seal blanks being mutually independent, and a thin elongated strip of easily adapted to retain the blanksin al-ignrnent'within the stack for transport and storage thereof yet at'the. same time being sufficiently pliable to be axially withdrawnifrom engagement wit the blanks without rupture of the strip." a

2. The stack of claim 1 wherein thebrienting means are the sidewalls of an aperture in the backplatieof a nonnestable seal I blank and the strip extends through the aperture in each seal blank for contact with the sidewalls, the configuration of the aperture and the strip mutually cooperating to prevent rotation of the seal blanks relative to the strip.

3. The stack of claim 2 wherein both the aperture and the strip are of noncircular configuration.

4. The stack of claim 1 wherein the deformable strip has a central portion within the stacked seal blanks and top and bot-, tom end portions extending therebeyond and deformed to secure the seal blanks within the stack.

5. The stack of claim 1 wherein the orienting means includes a noncircular aperture and the deformable strip is a sernirigid ribbon passing through the aperture of each seal blank and deformed externallyof the terminal blanks within the stack.

6. The stock of claim 5 wherein the ribbon has a cross-sectional area substantiall less than the size of the a erture.

7. A seal blank 0 the nonnestable type a apted to be said aperture being configured to prevent rotation of the seal blank relative to the strip at the area of interfering engagement therewith.

8. The seal blank of claim 7 wherein'the blank is a sleeve type and includes spaced side flanges in substantially parallelism with the back plate, the aperture being centrally disposed on the back plate overlying the space between the side flanges. 9. The stack of claim I wherein the elongated strip is made of dead soft strip steel. 

